Protecting Life in the Arctic

The spectacular Arctic encompasses more than 17 percent of the globe, harboring some of our planet’s least disturbed large marine ecosystems. Four million residents, including 30 different indigenous groups, call this region home. Life in the Arctic has been shaped for thousands of years by the ability to adapt to this land of perpetual ice and snow.

The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet, fundamentally altering both human communities and natural systems. Retreating sea ice is not only restructuring Arctic ecosystems, it is also permitting new industrial access for commercial fishing, offshore energy and commercial shipping on a scale never seen before.

To protect life in the Arctic, we must build conservation solutions that address the rapidly changing Arctic environment. At the same time, we must work to lower carbon emissions that are the major cause of global warming.

Pew’s Arctic Ocean program promotes science- and community-based conservation of the Arctic Ocean in the United States, Canada, Greenland, and between nations in the international Arctic.

Our program advocates scientifically sound policies consistent with indigenous land claims and traditional practices in the following areas:

A new paper co-authored by Pew staff (Henry Huntington, Raychelle Daniel, Marilyn Heiman, and Melissa Prior-Parks) and colleagues on safe shipping in the Bering Strait was published in the journal Marine Policy. The paper, “Vessels, risks, and rules: Planning for safe shipping in Bering Strait,” discusses the risks posed by increased commercial vessel traffic and suggests regulatory... Read More

As the sea ice recedes each summer, more than 57,000 beluga whales return to the estuaries of Manitoba’s southwestern Hudson Bay to molt, feed, and give birth. A new video released this week by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Oceans North Canada project documents the crucial role these biologically rich estuaries play as the belugas’ summer home. Read More

Research & Analysis

A new paper co-authored by Pew staff (Henry Huntington, Raychelle Daniel, Marilyn Heiman, and Melissa Prior-Parks) and colleagues on safe shipping in the Bering Strait was published in the journal Marine Policy. The paper, “Vessels, risks, and rules: Planning for safe shipping in Bering Strait,” discusses the risks posed by increased commercial vessel traffic and suggests regulatory... Read More

The Arctic Ocean is one of the planet’s pristine marine regions. But permanent ice is diminishing due to climate change, opening the international waters of the Central Arctic Ocean to commercial fishing for the first time in human history. Read More

Henry Huntington, Arctic science director for The Pew Charitable Trusts, traveled to Canada's western Arctic in November for a meeting about community-based monitoring, a program that engages local residents in collecting data and observations about the environment. Read More

As the sea ice recedes each summer, more than 57,000 beluga whales return to the estuaries of Manitoba’s southwestern Hudson Bay to molt, feed, and give birth. A new video released this week by The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Oceans North Canada project documents the crucial role these biologically rich estuaries play as the belugas’ summer home. Read More

A National Research Council report released today studied how rapid changes in the Arctic's climate, ecosystems, and communities are prompting the need for new research that can explore these shifts. Read More

Arctic marine mammals depend more on their hearing than other senses because sound travels well underwater. As the Arctic Ocean undergoes many changes, it's becoming noisier—and that could have profound impacts on animals that rely on sound to survive. Read More

After last year's BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, President Obama promised cleaner, safer energy development. Yet the administration is on the brink of approving industry plans to drill up to 10 exploratory oil wells in the remote, and fragile Arctic Ocean, beginning this summer. Read More

America's Arctic Ocean is central to the diet and culture of indigenous communities who have practiced a subsistence way of life for thousands of years. But with pressure mounting to expand offshore oil development, the nation's northernmost ocean—and the communities that depend on it—are at risk. Read More

As industry and government look to expand drilling in the U.S. Arctic Ocean, many Alaska Natives who live along the nation's northernmost coast worry about what an oil spill would do to the ocean they call their "garden." Read More

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